Tag Archives: boulder

A couple of weeks ago a large development dubbed Rêve (“dream” in French) became the first project to get called up by Boulder’s City Council at concept plan review (see the concept book for the project here). Rêve would occupy … Continue reading →

It’s an underlying axiom, a chanted mantra, a litany: More people means more cars. More cars means more traffic. More traffic means more congestion. We hate congestion, ergo: NO MORE PEOPLE. The litany was recently recited by John D. English … Continue reading →

I went to the Open House for the city’s Envision East Arapahoe project last night. This process was originally supposed to look at transportation improvements and potential land-use changes along the East Arapahoe corridor. But based on the presentation from … Continue reading →

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Will Toor and Mike Salisbury at the Southwest Energy Efficiency Project have put together a good paper called Managed Lanes in Colorado (it’s a PDF) that looks at the policy rationale behind (and a few issues with) creating additional highway … Continue reading →

If you live in Boulder, you’ve almost certainly noticed the construction along US-36 — aka the Boulder-Denver Turnpike. The main thing that’s being built here is one new lane in each direction. However, it’s not your average road-widening project. Usually … Continue reading →

In 2010 Portland, Oregon made it cheap and easy for people to build ADUs (Accessory Dwelling Units — also known as “granny flats”, “in-law apartments”, “carriage houses”, etc — small secondary dwellings that are on an existing property), and to … Continue reading →

Dear City Council, I strongly urge you to reject the annexation of the Hogan-Pancost property. A huge proportion of Boulder is already zoned for low-density single-family residential land use. This type of land use — especially when it is at … Continue reading →

Boulder’s QuickLeft is hosting a Bicycle Hackfest, the evening of Tuesday, May 14th, from 6-9pm. Unfortunately, I can’t make it, but it would be great if someone could work on getting our Mark-A-Spot Open311 testbed built out… contact me if … Continue reading →

On street bike parking (bike corrals) have become very popular with local street-level businesses in Portland, Oregon. I think it’s time for Boulder to regularize our bike corral program. We need to get some decent non-diagonal racks in there with … Continue reading →

I spent the day at a workshop organized by the city with Smart Growth America and Otak, looking at how cities in the US can change their transportation and land use policies to create more livable, healthier, less carbon intensive, … Continue reading →

Murder MachinesMurder Machines: Why Cars Will Kill 30,000 Americans This Year. A good essay-length look at how social norms regarding streets and safety have changed over the last century, and why our current norms and design guidelines lead very predictably to tends of thousands of preventable deaths each year. Covers a lot of the same territory as Peter D. Norton's excellent book Fighting Traffic, which gives a detailed historical account of the transition, between about 1915 and 1930, from streets being universally accessible public space to being nearly the sole domain of motorized transportation. Ralph Nader effectively spearheaded a campaign for

Managed Lanes in ColoradoWill Toor and Mike Salisbury at the Southwest Energy Efficiency Project have put together a good paper called Managed Lanes in Colorado (it's a PDF) that looks at the policy rationale behind (and a few issues with) creating additional highway capacity in the form of managed lanes with tolling, that also allow high occupancy vehicles and transit to take advantage of the investment, addressing some of the "Lexus Lane" criticism of using tolls in the public right of way (on projects that are still mostly publicly funded). It's not quite as fun to read as my magnum opus from this

America's Cities Are Still Too Afraid to Make Driving Unappealing - Emily Badger - The Atlantic CitiesIt's the relative attractiveness of different modes of transportation that shapes our choices, and American cities are still terrified of making driving less attractive. This really puts a cap on what fraction of trips we can get over to biking, walking and mass transit. Partly because driving is such an ingrained cultural norm (even if it's just as easy to drive as to bike, the default behavior amongst most people will be to drive), and partly because accommodating cars well means degrading the walking, biking and transit amenities. In a place like Boulder where people actually have alternatives to driving

Granny flats flourish after fee waiver... in PortlandIn 2010 Portland, Oregon made it cheap and easy for people to build ADUs (Accessory Dwelling Units -- also known as "granny flats", "in-law apartments", "carriage houses", etc -- small secondary dwellings that are on an existing property), and to nobody's surprise, the tiny homes boomed. This kind of housing adds density without changing neighborhood character, lets people live lighter on the land, and helps makes housing affordable both for the renters, and the homeowners who now have a rental income that was impossible before. And they do it all without any public subsidy.
Boulder can do this too.

Hamburg's Car Free Greenway Network
There have been a bunch of links floating around recently about the German city of Hamburg's plans to "go car free" in the next 15-20 years. For example this BBC Future article which references this post on Inhabitat, which then points to Arch Daily which finally links directly to the actual city planning site from Hamburg (auf deutsch of course).
Unfortunately, these seem to be just click-bait headlines. As far as I can tell (and I don't read German) the real point of the plan is to create an extensive, connected network of bike and pedestrian greenways that provide easy access

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Bikes Belong is a nationwide coalition of bicycle companies working together to put more people on bikes more often. They advocate for the inclusion of bicycles in federal transportation planning and funding. They also have a grant program of their own. And they just happen to be based out of Boulder!

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The Streetsblog Network is a nationwide collaboration between more than 400 citizen journalists covering sustainable transportation and livable streets issues.

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StreetFilms produces short films that show how smart transportation design and policy result in better places to live, work and play. Their ~400 videos have been viewed millions of times and have inspired action worldwide.

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Better Boulder is a new civic voice for sustainable development and social innovation in the City and County of Boulder. We want to create and implement a vision for how the city can grow in a compact, connected, humane way.